This section introduces aspects that may be helpful in facilitating a better understanding of the inventions. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.
In some known network topologies, nodes may be arranged in a bus topology where a common backbone connects all of the nodes. In other known network topologies, nodes may be arranged in a ring topology where each node in a chain has two neighbors and the last node connects back to the first node. In still other known network topologies, nodes may be arranged in a star topology where each of the child nodes connect directly back to one parent node. In still other known network topologies, nodes may be arranged in a tree topology where a root node spawns one or more levels of nodes and each child node on a lower level connects directly to their parent at a higher level of the tree. In still other known network topologies, nodes may be arranged in a mesh topology where one or more of the nodes connect to one or more of the other nodes providing a plurality of paths through the network.